David Cicilline led the fight against Big Tech. Here’s what comes next.

Posted on (Updated by Zack Budryk

The House is losing its top antitrust reform champion later this year when Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) resigns. 

The congressman announced last month that he will retire from Congress in June to take a role as president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, a community foundation and largest funder of nonprofit organizations in the state, ending his seven-term run in the House.

By reaching across the aisle, Cicilline led the House Judiciary Committee, as chair of the antitrust subcommittee, in advancing a series of bipartisan proposals to revamp antitrust laws in a way that targeted the nation’s largest tech companies.

Cicilline and his coalition of antitrust reform supporters said the rules on the books fail to address the modern day industry giants, namely Meta, Amazon, Google and Apple.

The proposals sought to address concerns critics said the tech platforms raised, such as boosting their own products and services over rival offerings, and to redefine what firms qualify as dominant companies based on market cap and user base numbers.

But his efforts were often met with opposition.

The companies have pushed back strongly on that assertion, with tech groups arguing that the proposals would force them to unwind services and features users enjoyed.

Cicilline and the bills' supporters said the bills would not have the effect, but failed to pass any of them. Despite the rare bipartisan support, most of the proposals failed to make it to President Biden’s desk in the last Congress. 

Lobbying during a House transition

The combination of hefty lobbying from tech giants and a flip in House control to GOP leaders means the antitrust proposals are seemingly at a standstill.

While a handful of congressional Republicans support taking antitrust action against Big Tech companies, GOP lawmakers as whole have focused their tech agenda on content moderation and censorship.

In an interview with The Hill, Cicilline said he is still hopeful there is still a path forward for the agenda he laid the groundwork for in the House. 

“There's still really strong bipartisan support for that whole package. We had the votes in the last Congress. My sense is we have the votes in this Congress, too. I think what will make it a little more challenging for the next couple of years is the Republican House leadership's opposition to these bills,” Cicilline told The Hill. 

In another blow to the antitrust reform push, House GOP leaders replaced Cicilline’s Republican counterpart in the fight, Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), in the top spot on the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.

When they took control this year, Republicans placed Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a staunch libertarian, as subcommittee chair in yet another sign that they won’t take up the bills.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.)
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) gives remarks during an enrollment ceremony for The Respect for Marriage Act at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, December 8, 2022.

How Cicilline joined the antitrust fight

Cicilline was hesitant at first to take the reins as ranking member of the antitrust subcommittee in 2017. Rich Luchette, a longtime former senior adviser to Cicilline, said he even advised his boss against doing so. 

“I was thinking to myself, 'He's in leadership, he's gonna have his hands full with that, he should pick one lane. And what is antitrust anyways?' ” he said, referring to lawmaker's role as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. 

“Fortunately, he did not listen to me,” Luchette added. 

For Cicilline, his reluctance was rooted in the fact that he had little experience with antitrust law. But upon advice from Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, he took the post. 

“He said, ‘Sometimes you should take a new assignment just because you're going to stretch your mind and learn something new,'" Cicilline said.

"And it turned out to be very good advice, because shortly after taking this role, the big Cambridge Analytica breach was revealed, and a lot of information about what was happening online and the focus really became the role of these technology platforms in not only our economy, but in our democracy,” he continued.

While Democrats were still in the minority, Cicilline started by learning more about the issues.

His tutorial on the issues turned into launching the investigation that led to the blockbuster 450-page report on digital marketplace competition — a process that included grilling the CEOs of the nation’s largest companies at committee hearing.

“The more I've learned about it over these years, the more urgent I believe action is. The more damaging, I think, allowing these technology companies that have monopoly power to continue to operate unchecked from any regulation and continue to grow their power and their market share is,” Cicilline said. 

How Cicilline built an antitrust reform coalition 

Although House GOP leaders aren’t showing interest in bringing the bills forward again, the Judiciary Committee’s markup in June 2021 brought together unlikely allies in the House. 

The proposals advanced out of the committee with support — and opposition — from both sides of the aisle, placing lawmakers like Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on the same side promoting the bills and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) together on the opposing side. 

Buck said that bipartisan nature was a key part of how he led the push. 

“I think that we need more of David Cicillines in Congress — people who have strong feelings about their issues, but who are also willing to work across the aisle,” Buck told The Hill. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) addresses reporters following the weekly policy luncheon on Tuesday, January 24, 2023.

Buck was a leading Republican voice advocating for the antitrust reform bills. Along with him, Democrats found unlikely allies in Gaetz and Rep. Lance Gooden (Texas) among the handful of Republicans supportive of the effort.

In the Senate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and other supporters found a GOP ally in Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

Luchette said that bipartisan work was a cornerstone of how Cicilline approached his work in the House. 

“I could go on probably for hours telling you about the times that I worked for him and saw him working with people who are seen as right-wing ideologues, people who are on Fox News all the time, people who give no quarter to the Democratic Party, and he would work effectively with them on issues,” Luchette said. 

“At the end of the day, that's the way the system should work. It's not supposed to work with people just going to their corners and holding the line. You're supposed to be able to find common grounds and to the extent that they were able to do that, I think that was in large part because of the energy and effort that he poured into it,” Luchette added. 

The bills were the result of a 16-month investigation into market dominance in the digital sector, which ultimately led to a series of bipartisan proposals aimed at reforming antitrust laws to tackle concerns critics say are posed by Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple.

Pushback to proposals was immediate and substantial

Because tech giants have denied using anticompetitive practices, the companies and the industry groups that back them pushed back strongly on the proposals, shoveling millions into lobbying and expensive opposition ad campaigns. 

Much of that opposition was largely from groups like Chamber of Progress, NetChoice, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represent companies including Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple.

CCIA’s “Don’t Break What Works” campaign launched a series of ads targeting the proposals and arguing they would force companies to unwind services users enjoy or make companies charge users for previously free features. 

California Democrats, especially those who represent tech-heavy Bay Area districts, also pushed back on the proposals, arguing that they didn’t address the problems identified by the House investigation into digital marketplace competition in an effective way to serve the public.

Republicans fought hard against more antitrust regulation

Critical House Republicans, like Jordan, opposed the plans on the basis that the bills would give the Biden administration “more money.” 

To get Buck on board, Cicilline held a field hearing on competition issues in Buck’s home state of Colorado in 2020. 

The hearing featured executives from Tile, Sonos, Basecamp and the Boulder-based company PopSockets that testified over how tech giants were impacting their companies. 

“I wanted to demonstrate to him, even though he was the ranking member, that I respected his role in this work, and I also wanted him to hear from Colorado business folks about the impact of these platforms, on their businesses, business people, and, we just developed a very strong working relationship,” Cicilline said. 

Buck said after the hearing he became more interested and involved, and was able to develop a “trusting relationship” with Cicilline. 

“Which during this time frame is difficult. Obviously, David and I disagreed about the impeachment votes, and we disagreed about a lot of other very contentious issues,” Buck said. 

Cicilline served as an impeachment manager for former President Trump’s second impeachment. Buck voted along with the majority of his party against both impeachments of Trump. 

“But when it came to this, we both found common ground. And he was great if I went to my Republican colleagues and discussed a bill and they said, ‘Well, you know, you got to change this and one, two, and three,’ " he said.

"I would go to David and get those things changed and I would go back and get Republican support. So it really was a process where he was willing to compromise a great deal to get the Republican support that we needed to get the bills passed in the House,” Buck said. 

Cicilline said both lawmakers understood that the tech companies were trying to “desperately make this a partisan issue” and pit the two against each other. 

“And we resisted that at every turn despite their best efforts,” Cicilline said.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) is seen following the sixth ballot for Speaker on the second day of the 118th session of Congress on Wednesday, January 4, 2023.

What supporters accomplished — and hope to do next

Two of the more high profile proposals, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act, didn’t get floor votes in the House or Senate and failed to be added to end of the year omnibus bills despite a push from the bill’s sponsors and outside supporters. 

The first bill aimed to limit dominant platforms from creating preferences for their own products and services on their platforms.

The second aimed to add regulations for dominant app stores. In the Senate, versions of the bills also advanced out of the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. 

Lawmakers did, however, successfully get a package of less controversial antitrust reform measures, also part of the proposals spawned from the House investigation, passed.

The package aimed to boost federal and state antitrust enforcers’ power to give them a better shot at taking on powerful tech firms.

“I think for sure when the Democrats take the House back, this will remain a priority and I expect these laws will also make it to the president’s desk,” Cicilline said, of the other antitrust proposals. 

Can Cicilline's legacy evolve into policy?

Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House before the 2022 election, but the proposals failed to get floor votes in either chamber. 

“It can often take multiple terms of Congress to build sufficient support to pass legislation. So we look forward to continuing to monitor in the Congress and hope to see concrete changes that come about to check Big Tech’s power,” said Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit that supports antitrust and corporate accountability legislation. 

As Cicilline steps down, it is not clear who will take the reins from him when he leaves.

He said Democrats who were sponsors of the proposals that came forward, like Jayapal, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) are the “likely champions” of the antitrust push in the next Congress. 

Harper said the Rhode Island Democrats’ legacy is going to include “educating a generation of Congressional leaders to both understand the dangers of Big Tech and importantly the antitrust tools that Congress has to do something about it.”

“We really see Congressman Cicilline as a once-in-a-generation leader on antitrust, and in many ways the person Congress was waiting for to move this issue forward,” she said.

As Congress grapples with threats from new emerging technologies, such as the rapid rise of ChatGPT and the wave of rival generative AI products, Cicilline said it is “absolutely essential” that Congress “remain and get current on this technology.” 

“I think one of the things that was a tremendous advantage at the big companies was that Congress, sort of let them do what they want to set back and allowed them to continue to grow and be free from any government oversight or regulation,” he said. 

“I hope that was a lesson and that everyone will recognize that those around to make the jurisdiction need to really stay current with these developments, so that we won't be a decade behind the decision that needs to be enacted,” he added.

Europe relaxes after US midterms, but fears of a 2024 Trump win run high

Posted on (Updated by Zack Budryk

America’s allies in Europe breathed a sigh of relief as the U.S. midterm contests come to a close. U.S. allies believe slimmer margins of control between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will not jeopardize American support to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.  

From Kyiv to Berlin and Tbilisi, Georgia, fears that a larger Republican majority would move the U.S. back into the isolationist mindset of the Trump presidency were squashed. But the international community will be closely watching what a likely divided government means for President Biden’s leadership role among allies. 

But even amid European relief, a group of Republicans largely backed by former President Trump still put the fate of U.S. support to Ukraine increasingly under strain. 

The United States is the largest supplier of military and economic assistance to Ukraine, and Europeans are bracing for a potential Trump comeback after the former president teased announcing a 2024 run. 

“I think there's kind of a bit of a relief, especially in Europe … that the march of MAGA Republicanism, Trumpism seems to have stopped in its tracks a bit,” said Matthias Matthijs, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That’s at least the interpretation here. That this is not a foregone conclusion that 2024 will result in some sort of isolationist presidency again.” 

Khatia Dekanoidze, an opposition lawmaker from Georgia, told The Hill that the Georgian public are “interested in who will be winning in the House and who will be running the Senate and what the balance is, what would be decided regarding Ukrainian support.” 

“Also it’s very interesting from the people’s perspective, will Trump be back? It’s a very common question,” she added.  

Yevgen Korniychuck, Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, told The Hill that Kyiv is watching closely the “minority of pro-Trump” Republicans, raising concern that “they are not really happy with support of Ukraine.” 

“But the full majority will be in support, I’m sure. This is the most important for us,” he said.  

Europeans are also paying close attention to the presidential aspirations of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has increasingly come under attacks from Trump, signaling his outsized influence in the GOP.  

“Ron DeSantis has arrived as a name in the German press,” said Peter Rough, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute with a focus on Europe.   

“[The Germans] say Ron DeSantis may be even more dangerous than Trump because he can actually implement and execute his policies, unlike DJT [Donald J. Trump]. ‘Trump but with a brain,’ they said last night on the [German] prime-time talk show I was on.” 

Europeans welcomed Biden's focus on improving the transatlantic relationship that was made a target by Trump, who threatened to pull out of NATO, antagonized leaders in Germany and France and embraced far-right outliers like Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orbán.  

“There’s no question that folks in Europe do wonder what’s going to happen in 2024,” said Marjorie Chorlins, senior vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They do see the more hawkish, less pro-transatlantic rhetoric that came out of the last administration as a problem and that there’s a risk that’s going to come back.”  

Chorlins said that Europeans welcome closer cooperation with the U.S., and are looking to leverage the unity Biden rallied in support for Ukraine — coordinating sanctions against Moscow and pooling military and economic assistance for Kyiv — to address other aspects of the American relationship with the European Union.  

“The question is whether we can leverage the unity that we found around Ukraine and Russia, and take that energy and apply it in other ways,” she said.   

Biden, in a post-midterm-election press conference on Wednesday, said that the “vast majority” of allies are looking to cooperate when asked how other world leaders should view this moment for the U.S., with Trump teasing another presidential run. 

Biden further warned against isolationism that Trump had embraced. 

“What I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we've always been?” the president said. “Because, look, the rest of the world looks to us. … If the United States tomorrow were to, quote, ‘withdraw from the world,’ a lot of things would change around the world.” 

Emily Horne, former National Security Council spokesperson and special assistant to Biden, called the midterm elections the dog that didn’t bark for European allies and partners. 

“There’s some temporary relief now, but not on the bigger question of 2024 and whether Trump or someone like him could come back and derail so much of the progress that we have been able to make together with Europe, not just on Ukraine, but on everything from getting COVID under control to preparing for future pandemics to tackling climate change,” said Horne, founder of Allegro Public Affairs. 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) who could become the next House Speaker, raised eyebrows last month when he said Republicans would scrutinize aid to Ukraine if they have a majority, comments he has since tried to defend as oversight rather than a lack of support for Ukraine.  

Biden on Wednesday said he is optimistic that funding and bipartisan support for Ukraine would continue, adding that he would be surprised if there’s a majority of Republicans who are unwilling to help.  

Horne argued that it would be a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin if a Republican-led House puts a halt to the flow of munitions to Ukrainians. She added that while McCarthy knows the consequences of such a move, it comes down to the others in his camp. 

“The question is, can he control the actors in his caucus that care more about their Twitter sound bites than doing the right thing by both U.S. security interests in Europe and the Ukrainian people?” Horne said.  

But, she added, there is an understanding among allies that “there are individuals who get a lot of airtime who actually have very little sway over what’s in the policy that goes forward for the president's signature.” 

Allies worry about other aspects of a Republican majority in Congress and how it could impact Biden’s overall focus on the war in Ukraine and foreign policy issues like climate and China. 

With a potential Republican majority in the House, there is a concern among Europeans that GOP-led investigations into Biden could distract him from international affairs, Matthijs said. 

“There is worry in Europe that Biden will now be distracted by a House that will make his life miserable. That all we’re going to hear about is Hunter Biden’s laptop and these kinds of fake impeachment proceedings against the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, Tony Fauci, you name it,” he said. 

But, he said that Europeans feel “slightly better” about the U.S. overall after the midterm elections. 

“It doesn't mean much will change right away because of this election, but at least it's a very helpful reminder, I think, to a lot of people in Europe that the U.S. is capable of self-correction when it goes too much in one direction,” he said.